


I'm Sorry

by hgiel



Category: K-pop, NRG
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-03
Updated: 2011-11-03
Packaged: 2017-10-25 16:28:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/272365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hgiel/pseuds/hgiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sung Hoon tries dealing with Hwan Sung's death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm Sorry

Sung Jin let himself in when Sung Hoon made no motion to welcome him. There wasn’t a need anyway, they both knew he would be coming in on his own accord, he always did everything on his own accord.  
“You are taking good care of the place.” Sung Jin observed, taking a look around the small apartment.  
“Did you come here to clean it for me?”  
“I would have, if it needed it.” He said, shooting a smile toward Sung Hoon before seating himself on the couch.  
He intended to wait for Sung Hoon to join him, and usually Sung Hoon would have made him request it, instead of silently complying, but he wasn’t in the mood to wait Sung Jin out. That could take longer then sitting through whatever it was that Sung Jin had come to say. As a pathetic show of defiance though, he sat across from him on the table.  
“How are you doing?” Sung Jin asked pleasantly.  
“Fine.”  
“You look fine. You’ve always look fine. You don’t need to be fine, Sung Hoon.”  
So that was it. He had come for a heart to heart. Thinking Sung Hoon was swallowing his feelings, wallowing in his own filth, and rotting away silently. Sung Jin was going to come save him with a few friendly words, or whatever the hell he had in mind.  
“We were all close to Hwan Sung, but you-”  
“What do you want me to do Sung Jin?” Sung Hoon cut him off angrily. “Huh? You want me to cry? You want me to scream? Or do you want something more dramatic? Are you tired of waiting for a phone call, telling you I’ve slit my writs?”  
“Stop it.” Sung Jin said in his infuriatingly calm voice. “Im just trying to help.”  
“Ill let you know if I need your help.”  
They sat silently for what seemed like forever. If Sung Jin was trying to wait him out again, then he would lose. Sung Hoon didn’t care anymore. He didn’t want to talk to him anymore, and was more then comfortable with sitting there for as long as it took.  
Eventually, Sung Jin spoke, and managed to surprise Sung Hoon. “Myung Hoon and I were talking about it, and we’re going to rejoin NRG.”  
Suddenly, Sung Hoon felt a surge of anger he didn’t know was left. “You have a lot of fucking nerve. You think this is the time to be planning your next fucking album?”  
“This isn’t about me!” Sung Jin said, joining Sung Hoon in his irritation. “Its been months, Sung Hoon, maybe you haven’t noticed since you never seem to leave this fucking room. We need to think about what we’re going to do. NRG was important to Hwan Sung, do you want all his work to go down the drain? He wouldn’t have wanted NRG to disband.”  
“I don’t want it to either! I don’t think you deciding to come back, as if you alone can save us, without even talking to us about it is right though!”  
“We’ve all talked about it but you, Sung Hoon! You aren’t ever around, and you don’t answer our calls. You act like you are so fucking fine, but you keep your life arrested, as if you think it’ll change something!”  
“I am fine!” Sung Hoon yelled at him. And not for the first time, realizing that was the problem, he actually was fine. No one would understand that.  
“Ill call you later Sung Hoon.” Sung Jin said quietly, and let himself out.  
Sung Hoon waited until he heard the latch catch before moving off the table onto the couch. He could still feel the warmth from Sung Jin’s body, and somehow, even that made him annoyed. It seemed no matter what anyone did, it would make him angry. It was the only thing he had felt in a long time.  
But, he was really just angry with himself. Why wasn’t he sad? Why wasn’t he hurting? Why couldn’t he feel the least bit of grief over the loss of his best friend and lover? People who hadn’t met Hwan Sung showed up at his funeral crying their selves sick, and Sung Hoon couldn’t manage to feel anything at all.  
For as long as Hwan Sung was in the hospital, all he felt was horror, sadness, and regret. And then, as soon as he died, Sung Hoon felt nothing. It was as if the past months had been just a bad memory, and he had woken with a numbing, and abrupt, start.  
How was he suppose to mourn Hwan Sung when it didn’t even feel like he was gone? It wouldn’t have surprised Sung Hoon if he walked through the door right then, even though he knew it wasn’t possible.  
Nothing in his every day life told him Hwan Sung was dead, just missing. His things were still around the apartment, his scent was still on the pillows. Sometimes Sung Hoon wanted to burn everything to the ground, so maybe then something in him would realize the finality of it all, and he would react appropriately.

When she called, Sung Hoon wanted nothing more then to tell her he was busy. Tell her he couldn’t make it there anytime soon, to forget about it. He couldn’t do that though. Hwan Sung’s mother was like his own, one of his five mothers. If she called, Sung Hoon could do nothing but agree to meet her as he was already heading out the door.  
“Look what I found when I was looking through the closet.” She said, settling next to him at the table.  
Before she could set the photo album down, she had to move some of Hwan Sung’s things to the side. Apparently, Mrs. Kim had decided some things were best kept with Hwan Sung’s friends. She wanted everyone to have things to remember him by. Sung Hoon couldn’t stress the point he had enough at his own place without sounding rude.  
“This is an album I put together when Hwan Sung was young, oh, then I got busy and just stopped. But, anyway, I thought you would like to see. There are some cute photos of him as a child.” She said fondly, flipping the book open.  
Everything about her exuded strength and reverence. She talked openly about her son’s illness and death. No longer crying, she would talk about these things with a smile on her face. She could smile and laugh, and no one said she was repressing her feelings. But then, she had cried, she had mourned openly, and she kept Hwan Sung’s name on her lips each moment. Sung Hoon did none of this.  
Suddenly, he felt guilty. He didn’t feel guilt about the other guys, because out of all of them, he had lost the most. But this was Hwan Sung’s mother. She gave birth to him, raised him, and watched him slowly die. Sung Hoon wanted to feel pain so badly. He wanted to feel even the least bit of what she did, as she cried her heart out when Hwan Sung was put to rest. He wanted to feel it for her, so she could suffer that must less, knowing he would be there to keep Hwan Sung alive in memory. But now she was strong and brave, and he was taking strength from her, as he watched her look through the old photos. Strength he didn’t deserve to take.  
“Oh, look at these.” She said, a smile growing wide on her face.  
Sung Hoon returned from his reverie, to look at the photos Mrs. Kim indicated. They were a set of photos of Hwan Sung playing soccer. They were old, and yellowing, but cute and candid. Sung Hoon could almost imagine the adult Hwan Sung he knew taking the place of the younger version in the photos, and couldn’t help but smile.  
“He played soccer for a few years but lost interest. He wasn’t that good anyway.” She said with a laugh.  
“I never knew he...”  
Mrs. Kim waited a moment before looking back up at Sung Hoon when he didn’t finish his sentence. “You never knew what?”  
He never knew Hwan Sung played soccer... And for some reason, realizing that made him feel ill. He had no idea Hwan Sung played soccer. It hadn’t come up. It wasn’t important, wasn’t something that mattered. Now, Sung Hoon would never know Hwan Sung’s side of it. He would never know any of the stories Hwan Sung might have had about that time in his life.  
And what else didn’t he know? What else hadn’t been important enough to talk about?  
“I don’t feel very well, Im going to go.” Sung Hoon said quietly, and brushed off all of Mrs. Kim’s concerns for him.

Being able to look at his face didn’t effect him at all before, but now, seeing it made his throat catch, and his eyes burn. Things that hadn’t clicked in his mind before, did now. Behind the photo of Hwan Sung, and past the cold wall, was his body. It was going to be there for eternity. When Sung Hoon’s grew old, it would be doing it alone. There was no future for Hwan Sung, only the past. The past that Sung Hoon apparently wasn’t completely in touch with.  
“Im sorry.” Sung Hoon said aloud, to Hwan Sung’s photo, or his body, or maybe his spirit. “Im sorry Hwan Sung. Im sorry I didn’t know you like I should have.” He chocked as tears finally decided to appear, and sat down on the ground, hard.  
“Im sorry you had to die when I didn’t. Im sorry I have a future you don’t. Im sorry I was too stupid to not know all this before.” He wiped quickly at his face when tears ran down it, then, as if Hwan Sung could really see him, he covered his face with both hands self consciously.  
“You would have cried if I died, you would have known what death meant. I didn’t know, I still don’t. I don’t know what its going to be like without you. Im scared that I wont be okay, and Im scared that I will. If Im okay, that doesn’t mean I don’t love you anymore.”  
Sung Hoon dropped his hands, and looked up at the photo of Hwan Sung. “If Im okay its because Im a terrible person, it has nothing to do with you. You should have been with someone better then me. You should have been with someone who would have thought to ask you all those stupid things about your past. Someone who would have known it mattered. I never know what matters Hwan Sung, its not that I don’t love you. Im too fucking stupid to know any better.”  
Sung Hoon stopped talking then, and listened to himself cry. It sounded ragged, and far away, as if he was listening outside himself. He tried to think of what Hwan Sung would have said to him now, if he could speak. But, he didn’t know. He had no idea what Hwan Sung would have said, because Sung Hoon had never been so honest with Hwan Sung in his life. Now it was too late. It was yet another thing Sung Hoon didn’t know, and wouldn’t ever find out.


End file.
